Bib Fortuna - TSC - Basic (SAGA 003)

Bib Fortuna

Battle of Carkoon

species: twi'lek

occupation: jabba's chief lieutenant

weakness: jedi mind tricks

Bib Fortuna's troubles start when he allows two harmless-looking droids to talk to his boss, Jabba The Hutt. Jabba chooses not to free Han Solo, so Luke Skywalker decides to take matters into his own hands. Bib Fortuna falls victim to one of Luke's Jedi mind tricks and allows him to enter Jabba's Palace. When Luke and his friends are later victorious, Bib Fortuna escapes on a skiff and narrowly avoids being blown up on Jabba's sail barge!

Bib Fortuna was probably one of the more striking visages in Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi. The first time Star Wars fans saw a Twi’lek in a Star Wars film, the creepy skin, eyes, teeth and tentacles were something we stared down as young Star Wars fans and stuck in our minds forever. Bib Fortuna was popular from the get go and he was one of the first vintage figures made for the “new” Return Of The Jedi collection in 1983. We didn’t see him realized in the modern Star Wars line until 1997. The POTF2 version was decent for it’s time, but most fans thought that the vintage figure captured a better and more accurate expression. This same figure was revisited with an all-new paint job in the fan favorite Original Trilogy Collection in 2004 in pseudo vintage packaging and many thought it was a step up from the 1997 figure, but far from being great. All of this sort of changed in late 2005 as the first wave of The Saga Collection started showing up at retail right before Christmas of which the new modern version of Bib Fortuna was part. While he is a "stump" fromt he waist down, he is actually superior to all previous versions.

There is no denying that the 2005 figure comes with significantly less articulation. But everything else about him is actually fantastic. As a figure that always looks best posed right next to Jabba The Hutt or standing next to C-3PO and R2-D2, Bib Fortuna from The Saga Collection is a pleasant surprise for looking good despite his limitations. Bib Fortuna comes with only eight points of articulation (and you may be hard pressed to find them all right away, including the double head joint), but he serves more like a statue thanks to the robes inhibiting any valuable movement. But in all honesty, it doesn’t matter. Bib Fortuna is in more need of a great sculpt than loaded with super-articulation. And his sculpt and paint job are excellent. He expression favors the original vintage figure but instead of a staff, he comes with a well-sculpted (and small) dagger that can be housed in his cummerbund in his center. As previously mentioned, his robes inhibit nearly all movement except for his swivel elbows and wrists, but they are sculpted beautifully and we are thoroughly impressed with the overall finished figure.

We have discovered over the years of collecting that not all figures need to be super-articulated. While there will be many who vehemently oppose this line of thought, we would like Hasbro to use their tooling budget and give figures that need the extra articulation the super articulation. And then make figures like Bib Fortuna without as much. If the Hasbro line ended today, Bib Fortuna will age beautifully for many, many years and aside from wanting more articulation, he is wonderfully made. The Saga Collection is one of our most favorite lines that hasbro has done. From the micro-managed organization of the line from the “battle-specific” wave assortments to the color coding to the awesome updates to some figures that haven’t been updated in almost a decade, The Saga Collection really brought collectors some great gems. Bib Fortuna is a prime example of Hasbro bringing their A-game to the line and while we admit that he doesn’t have all of the articulation bells and whistles many like, he is still an excellent action figure nonetheless. Until Hasbro makes him super-articulated, this is the best (and most excellent) Bib Fortuna money can buy!